Month: October 2003

I’m usually not a fan of old jokes that have been re-written with a new cast. It’s fairly common, especially in the political realm, where the same jokes are repeated decade after decade with changes in the names to reflect the political leaning of the teller. I recently received an example of this, passed along by local activist Don Pratt. I’d seen the basic joke many times before, frequently starring a software mogul from Redmond. But whoever was responsible for the reincarnation of this one changed more than just a name. The whole story was changed to match the new character, in such a creative manner that I think it’s worth posting here.

Earlier this month, I waxed eloquent (or babbled inanely) about the joys of October Wednesdays. One of the nice things about hunting Wednesday mornings is that it leaves me in a good mood to face an afternoon of work. A fairly relaxing morning in the saddle on a Kentucky autumn morning leaves a warm feeling that doesn’t fade quickly. Today was just a little different. Hunting brought an adrenaline rush that made it tough to settle down for the afternoon.

Thanks to Carole for passing along this story about distillers at Mount Vernon recreating George Washington’s whisky recipe. One item in the article surprised me. I knew Washington made whisky, but I didn’t know he didn’t start until after he retired from politics. I always assumed that he had been the first US politician to realize that a good supply of whisky was essential to any campaign. The article says that the whisky will be aged for “a couple of years” before being auctioned off. I suppose that it will go to collectors who aren’t planning to drink it, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a little rough.

A Wired story reports on a group of New England mothers who have started a billboard campaign against genetic engineering. While I generally sympathize with their stand against too much meddling with nature, I’m not sure I see anything wrong with the example they use on their billboards. It’s almost enough to make me a supporter of genetic engineering.

I’ve frequently said that the solution to spam should be legislative and not technical. I don’t want to engage in a never-ending battle of technology with spammers, constantly upgrading my filter technology to combat their latest tricks. I just want the government to make them leave me alone. I know some people disagree with that approach, but apparently 97 members of the US Senate agreed when they approved the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act.

One common complaint about the internet is that it’s too easy to inadvertently stumble onto offensive material when innocently searching for something else. I had such an experience today. I was searching for some information, and ended up on a page with a teaser link that I couldn’t resist following. I won’t claim to be shocked by what I found, but I certainly was disgusted.

… but too nice not to. That was the dilemma this weekend. As I weighed my options on Friday night, I decided to skip the Saturday morning hunt and go out Sunday afternoon. I spent Saturday doing some yard work, and the afternoon heat made me reconsider the wisdom of running a horse into the ground on Sunday. I’d just about decided against it, since I still had plenty to keep me busy at home, but my arm got a serious twisting that night.

Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs.

I guess this shouldn’t really be a surprise, but it’s interesting to see it documented. I’d seen earlier reports about the astonishingly high percentage of our population who held untrue beliefs about the Iraq war, but this was the first time I’d seen it broken down by the source of news. (I don’t suppose they surveyed any of the readers of this blog to see how well-informed they are).

When pseudo-president Bush came to Lexington on Thursday to help raise an obscene amount of money for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, over a thousand Kentuckians turned out to express their displeasure with the state of the nation. Not surprisingly, a few of those protestors were Simpsons. I took the Nikon along and managed to snap a few pictures.

Could anything be finer than a Wednesday in October? I suddenly realized why I love this month, and Wednesdays especially. I suppose it might be a sign of creeping old age when one starts to find comfort in established routines (ruts?), but I’m not ashamed to admit that I wouldn’t mind settling into this rut of hunting in the morning, ogling students in the afternoon, returning home for a round of Doggie Style, and then a new episode of West Wing. So why is October the perfect month for this?